An elaborate database, playlister, player and utilities program for all digital audio files

DSH Jukebox

DSH electronics

P.O.box 1131

2260BC, Leidschendam

The Netherlands

Tel./Fax: + 31 70-3206117

Now FREEWARE !!!

CONTENTS

People today are finding a new hobby: collecting music files by storing them on their computer in the increasingly popular Mp3 file format. The days of having to look for hours through your CD-collection to find a particular song are now over! All you need is this DSH Jukebox, which is a sophisticated database, made by DSH electronics in the Netherlands.

Of course you can store all your music in directories, each with the name of the artist. However, retrieving a certain song still is quite a problem. Especially on this point the DSH Jukebox comes to your assistance: all songs are stored in an intelligent and flexible database. Finding a specific piece of music is now a piece of cake! Furthermore, the DSH Jukebox offers many, many more features like sorting of the data, making playlists, manipulating MP3 files etc. etc. Read all about it in this user guide.

Why did we chose the name DSH Jukebox? Well simply because names like MP3box, Mp3base, Mp3top, Mp3master, Mp3Wizard etc. etc. are already widely in use on the Internet. We wish you lots of pleasure with this quality product.

Features

• A very large number of features are incorporated:

• Elaborate Database for all your MP3 files (up to 100,000!)

• Just point and click to play any song (mp3, mp2, wav etc.)

• Many Playlist- and Jukebox functions

• Automatic Playlist creation, also random and according to your mood

• Linkage and automatic display of Lyrics and Artist images

• Automatic loading of all your files into the database

• Many MP3-File-edit features (title and contents)

• Dynamic ID3-TAG creation and -editing

• Now with full Speech control! (Using Philips Freespeech-2000)

• Speaking Disk Jocky (DJ)!

• Many Mp3 utilities etc. etc.

Up till version 5.0 the DSH Jukebox was heavily protected against illegal copying. From version 6.0 upwards, the DSH Jukebox is supplied as FREEWARE !!!

There are NO limitations to the use and distribution of the DSH Jukebox. The only small measure we have taken to at least have some recognition and benefit from making the DSH Jukebox is to add some advertisements for our products and reminders to visit our website. The only time these advertisements will appear is when you press the SETTINGS button, to change your preferences and on exiting the DSH Jukebox.

These advertisements have to be observed for at least 5 seconds after which you can press a STOP button to close them. If you do nothing, the advertisements will automatically disappear after 30 seconds.

If you want to get rid of these advertisement, then please send 10 US$, 25 Dutch Guilders or 10 Euro's to our address (together with your Email address) and we will then Email you a version of the DSH Jukebox.exe file which is advertisement-free! That's all!!

The DSH Jukebox will work under Windows-95/98, Windows-NT, Windows-ME , Windows-2000 and Windows-XP!

Back to Contents

These instructions are a brief summary of what is needed to get the DSH Jukebox going. It is only intended for the bold who know enough about computers and don’t like reading detailed instructions. Nevertheless we strongly recommend to read the more detailed instructions further below.

Quick Setup

• Install the software: insert the CD-ROM, activate SETUP and then simply follow the instructions on the screen. If you downloaded the software from the Internet then you will fist have to unzip the self-extracting file
• Start the DSH Jukebox (via "START/Program's and then click DSH Jukebox" or via START/RUN and enter the command DSHJuke.exe). The program is now FREEWARE, so no security procedures are in place!
• Start playing with the DSH Jukebox to get acquainted with its (many!) functions
• Press the SETTINGS button to customize the DSH Jukebox to your own liking.

Below you will now find a more detailed description:

Requirements for your Personal Computer

The DSH Jukebox can be installed and used on any IBM or other Personal Computer

Minimum required system configuration (for reasonable performance) is:

• IBM or compatible PC with MICROSOFT-WINDOWS-95/98

• Processor: 80386, 40 MHz

• 8 Mb memory

• 500 Mb hard disk

• 1x diskette station for 3.5" diskettes

• 1x CD-ROM player, 16 speed.

• SVGA card with 4 Mb memory

Recommended system configuration (for optimal performance) is:

• IBM or compatible PC with MICROSOFT-WINDOWS-95/98, Windows-NT, Windows-ME, Windows2000 of Windows-XP!

• Processor: Pentium 300 MHz or faster

• >64 Mb memory

• 10 Gbyte Hard Disk

• 1x diskette station for 3.5" diskettes

• 1x CD-ROM player, 40 speed.

• SVGA card with 16 Mb memory

What should you know?

DSH electronics assumes that you are acquainted with the use of a Personal Computer, including the specifics of WINDOWS-95/98, Windows-NT, WINDOWS-ME, Windows-2000 or Windows-XP. If not, please seek assistance from a friend or other. Nevertheless, installing and using the DSH Jukebox has been made as user-friendly as possible and even with limited knowledge of PC’s you should be able to get the program running and successfully use it.

Detailed SETUP instructions

Press START, SELECT RUN and type [Drive:\directory\] SETUP AND THEN SIMPLY FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE SCREEN.

You can also use the Windows Explorer to locate the SETUP program for the DSH Jukebox.

Always first close any running applications before activating SETUP

If the DSH Jukebox SETUP does not work correctly, please go over the installation steps described above.

Need any HELP ? (

IF DESPITE ABOVE INSTRUCTIONS YOU CANNOT GET THE DSH Jukebox TO WORK PROPERLY, THEN PLEASE CONTACT US BY E-MAIL: dshelectronics@knoware.nl

STARTING THE DSH Jukebox

General

Start the program via the "Start" button, bottom left of the Windows-95 or Windows-98 startup screen. Go to "program's" and click "DSH Jukebox". Another way to start is also via the Windows "Start" button, followed by RUN and then enter the command "C:\DSH Jukebox\DSH Jukebox.EXE". If you have only purchased the DSH Jukebox for bitmaps then you should use C:\DSHJuke\DSHJuke.exe.

A better/quicker way is to double click the ICON on the Windows startup screen for the DSH Jukebox (normally the flag of Holland). If this ICON does not exist then check Windows HELP on how to create such an ICON (in fact simply a matter of dragging the DSH Jukebox program with the mouse from it’s DSH Jukebox directory onto the Windows start up screen).

Step by step

If you have never worked with the DSH Jukebox before, this is what you should do after the program has started:

Press the ADD button: a small window appears

Select the directory that contains the songs that you want to add to the database and press START. All songs in that directory will now be added to the database. If the directory (and its sub-directory!) contains many song files, this "Add" task can take a while, so please be patient

The database will now show songs; Now first close the little window you just opened.

You are now ready to use the database: double click on a line showing a song you would like to hear and in most cases the song should start to play immediately.

However, if nothing happens, probably you need to make some changes to the SETTINGS, so press the Settings button.

Back to Contents

As user of the DSH Jukebox you can to very large extent determine the way the program works. You can decide what is shown on the screen, which sounds are audible, etc. etc.

Before reading this chapter, you might first wish to read about all the DSH Jukebox features in the chapter "MENU".

Buttons

Here you will see three buttons: DEFAULTS, SAVE and BACK

With the DEFAULTS button you can reset all the settings to the values as recommended DSH electronics. However, be careful: maybe these settings are not to your liking, so don’t press SAVE or BACK yet.

All settings are stored in the DSH Jukebox.INI file as soon as you select SAVE.

If you make any changes to the settings but forget to save them, you will automatically be reminded to do so when you press the BACK button.

The FONTS and BROWSE buttons will be described later.

Checkboxes

Most settings are made with the familiar Windows "check boxes". A cross indicates that the setting is active. The DSH Jukebox automatically changes any other check boxes in case a setting is in conflict with them.

You will find the following groups of check boxes:

• Sort at startup
• Miscellaneous
• Player choice
• Add files
• Fonts & Colours
• Sorting order
• Grid Layout
• Auto show / Start

Below all these settings are described in detail:

Sort at startup

After you have started the DSH Jukebox, you can make sure that all data is automatically sorted according to your wishes. This can be according to Song, Artist, Album, Year, Style or Path.

If you don’t want anything to be sorted then check the "Do not sort" box.

Miscellaneous

Here you will find a mixture of all sorts of settings:

Swap Artist <> Song

When using one of the ADD tasks from the Menu, the DSH Jukebox will automatically check whether a MP3 file contains a so called ID3 TAG. Such a tag normally contains the name of the Artist, the Song title, the Album, Comments, the Year and a Style code. However not all MP3 files have such a tag and in these cases the DSH Jukebox will use the Filename to derive the Artist and Song title. In order to cope with differences in the way people name the files, this tasks allows a swap of the Artist name and Song title. If you normally store your MP3 files in the format Song, Artist (e.g.:" Help – Beatles.mp3 ") then this check box should be checked, because this is the reverse order of what is common practice.

Do not check this box if you name your files in the order of Artist, Song (e.g.:"Beatles – Help.mp3").

If you set this check box wrong, then when adding songs, the artists name and song title will be inserted in the wrong columns in case of all files that do not have an ID3 tag!

This check box also allies to the SPECIAL task regarding inserting Artist and Song information to ID3 TAG’s (see further down).

Auto load

When checked, the DSH Jukebox will automatically load the default database (Mp3data1.mdb) at startup. We strongly recommend that you leave this box checked!

Clear before add

When this box is checked, the DSH Jukebox will automatically entirely erase the default database if you press the ADD button. We strongly recommend NOT to check this box, so it allows you time to reflect when pressing the ADD button and to realize that it first might be better to first save the current database under another name (with SAVE AS) before adding files (just in case something goes wrong!).

Fast PC

If you have a slow PC you might experience short interruptions of the music when using Winamp (or other players). This occurs more frequent during the playlist mode. By NOT clicking this box, the DSH Jukebox takes into account that your PC could be faster and thus does not perform certain tasks. Particularly the progress bar is not activated and the information line does not display the remaining playing time.

Checking this also makes the database load quicker, but some data is left out!

Show First

This applies to the PLAY and PLAYLIST tasks. If you have checked the Lyrics and/or Picture boxes (under Auto start/show) this check box determines whether the Lyrics and/or Picture window(s) are opened before the new song starts to play or not. The reason is that on slower PC’s it is recommendable to check this box, because the WINAMP player might otherwise be interrupted a couple of times if the lyrics or picture window are being opened while the song has already started to play.

Player choice

Mp3 files will normally be played by the internal player in the DSH Jukebox. You can also use the default player on your PC. The default player would already be linked to all files with WAV, MP2, MP3 etc. as extension. If you don't use the DSH Jukebox's own player, it is strongly recommended to use the Microsoft Media Player or WINAMP (version 2.2 or higher) as your default player.

If you don’t have a default player installed, you can use other players, like older versions of Winamp (in which case the DSH Jukebox will act differently by inserting the song title in the input text field!), Music Match (an excellent programs to also MAKE mp3 files from your audio CD’s) or Window’s own multi-media player. Check the appropriate box to select the desired player.

Add Files

When adding files to the database (with the ADD button or one of the ACTIONS from the menu), this setting determines what kind of files are added: All types, mp3, mp2, wav and/or three other types which you may determine yourself. In the latter case simply type in the three letter extentions in the three text boxes and check the adjacent check box.

Fonts & Colours

This determines what kind of fonts, font sizes, normal, italics, bold, understrike and colours are used in the main grid and in the Lyrics window. First check which of the two (the database grid or the Lyrics window) you wish to change and then press the FONTS button. A familiar dialog box will then appear in which you can make the desired settings.

As regards the Lyrics window, we prefer Arial-Bold, 10 points and Yellow as colour. Do not select black as a colour for the lyrics because the background is also black so then you won’t be able to read anything…

Sort order

Sort order simply determines if sorting is done in ascending order (so A to Z) or descending order (Z to A). This applies to all sort tasks. If you did not know it: sorting of the database grid is done by clicking on the top row of the grid that shows the title of each column.

Show

This has nothing to do with sorting, but we only recently added this feature. When active, the DSH Jukebox will show you what is happening during the filling of the database (with 'ADD"). If any mp3 file is corrupted this will regretably cause an error and the ADD feature will be aborted. You can see in the information line which file is causing the problem.

Log activity

When checked, the DSH Jukebox will log the time, date, song title, artist and year each time you play a song. This information is then stored in the DSH Jukebox.log file which you will find in the DSH Jukebox's directory. Use any text editor to read this log file.

Grid Layout

You can choose between our suggested layout of the database grid (with Arial as font, not bold and 8 points) or your own preferences (as set by you with the Fonts & Colour settings).

Auto show / Start

The DSH Jukebox can start any program that is linked with the chosen song. In this case it activates the program with the Path and filename that you have added to the EXECUTE column of the database grid.

Very important: you can save yourself the trouble of filling each line of the database grid with information where to find the appropriate Lyric, Picture and/or Executable. There is a far easier method: You simply leave these fiels in the database grid blank and tell the DSH Jukebox in which directory all of them are collectively stored! This is done in the following way:

Every time you check one of these three checkboxes, a browser screen appears with which you can set the directory name. Once you have chosen this directory, press OK and the DSH Jukebox will remember this name for the next time.

For instance set the directory name to "C:\LYRICS" for your lyrics and store all these lyrics (as text files) in that directory, with exactly the same name as the song file itself (the extention is not relevant: you could use ".txt", "sng", "lyr" or something else; the DSH Jukebox ignores the extention).

For example: if you have a song called "Beatles – Help.mp3" somewhere on your PC, then simply store the lyrics of this song as: "C:\LYRICS\Beatles – Help.txt"

You can do the same for all the Pictures of artists. In this case you could create a directory called "C:\ARTISTS" and in the example given above store a picture of the Beatles as "C:\ARTISTS\Beatles.gif". Be aware that you can only use pictures in bmp, gif, jpg and pcx format.

New:

When displaying a picture of the Artist, you can now right click with the mouse on this picture. A sub-menu will appear which allows you to determine how these pictures are shown: Maximized (full screen), Normal (filling the half screen-size picture field) or True Size (displaying the artist picture with exactly the same dimensions as it is stored on your hard disk). Also you can Hide the picture.

This is an important feature: Every time you select and start a song in the database grid, the DSH Jukebox will look for a picture of the Artist and the Lyrics of the song (the DSH Jukebox looks for them using the Path that is given in the Picture and Lyrics columns of the grid, which you have filled).

Checking the Picture and/or Lyrics boxes makes the relevant window(s) appear. This can happen before or after the song has already started to play (see the Miscellaneous/Start first check box described above).

Going back to the main program

To leave the SETTINGS program simply press the BACK button. As you already learnt, if you have made changes to your settings, you will be asked whether you wish to save them for the next time. If you choose YES then all your settings will be automatically saved in the MP3DATAB.INI file (which is located in the startup directory).

Below a detailed description is given of all the SETTINGS functions.

Language

As the DSH Jukebox has been developed in the Netherlands, the program is bi-lingual. You can chose between English and Dutch. The program will automatically show button captions, tooltexttips, Menu texts and messages in the selected language.

Playing Intro’s

The slider shown here lets you preset the duration of an "intro". The value can be set between 1 and 30 seconds. Playing an "intro" simply means playing the first X-seconds of a song from a playlist. To activate this feature, select PLAYLIST from the Menu in the main screen and then activate PLAY INTRO(‘s) ONLY.

Back to Contents

The MENU functions

General

The DSH Jukebox screen consists of a menu bar, push buttons, a progress bar, the database grid and a information/status line.

In the Menu bar you will recognize familiar (and unfamiliar) features:

• New
• Open Database
• Save Database
• Save Database As
• Open Playlist
• Save Playlist
• Save Playlist As
• Save Playlist in m3u format
• Show LOG file
• Exit

• Edit Database entries
• Browse
• Insert
• Copy selected songs
• Find Any Song
• Find Text
• Replace Text
• Find Double Records
• Delete this Record only
• Delete All selected Records
• Clear Selection
• Remove Non-Standard MP3 header
• Shorten beginning or end of MP3 file

• Clear and Add Songs
• Add All Songs
• Add one Song
• Clear database
• Compact database
• Refresh the database
• Sort Selection A > Z
• Sort Selection Z > A
• Sort by Artist & Song
• Sort by Album & Song
• Sort by Year & Song
• Move songs to artist directory
• Make text file with list of songs
• Change to Artistic screen layout

• General Settings
• Path Settings
• SAVE Settings
• Speaking DJ settings
• Use Freespeech

• Show and Start the Playlist
• Show the playlist
• Clear the Playlist
• Back to the Database
• Select at Random
• Select at Random according to Mood
• Select non-random according to Mood
• Select all Songs by this Artist
• Play Intro(‘s) only

• Printer Setup
• Print All Records
• Print Selected Records
• Printing-layout Setup
• Coulour printer settings

• List selected files
• Swap Artist and Song title in the filename(s)
• Insert text in filename(s)
• Add text to the end of filename(s)
• Delete text in filename(s)
• Replace text in filename(s)
• Convert filename(s) to Lower case
• Start all words in filenames with Capitals

• Edit/Make ID3 Tag
• MP3 file information
• Edit/Make ID3 Tag (DIR)
• Make ID3 Tag using the filename (DIR)
• Replace Style info in ID3 Tag’s

• Show Lyrics for this song
• Make new Lyric text
• Edit Lyrics text
• Save Lyrics text
• Save Lyrics text as
• Check for available lyrics
• List lyrics for (non) available songs
• Insert Y or N into database

• Insert Y or N into database
• Show pictures of selected artist

• About
• User Guide
• Information
• Contact details
• Inspector
• Service mode

• Various handy links to Internet sites

Detailed description of all Menu functions

File: New

This will simply erase the database grid (but not the data base itself!). Not a very useful feature.

File: Open Database

Use this to open another database that you saved earlier. Be aware that the MP3 box at startup always uses the default database called Mp3data1.mdb. Be extra careful when making changes to this database. We recommend that you always make backup copies of this database (by saving it under another name with the FILE-SAVE AS function.

File: Save Database

Actually this function is not really needed as all changes that you make to any open data base will be immediately and automatically be saved.

File: Save Database As

This is used to save the current open data base under another name (useful to make backup copies!).

File: Open Playlist

Use this to open any playlist that you saved earlier. All Playlists are saved in a DSH-electronics proprietary format and are recognizable by the ".dpl" extention.

If under SETTINGS you have set the "DIRECT PLAY" check box, the DSH Jukebox will immediately start to play all the songs that are in the playlist.

From version 7.0 onwards you can also open "m3u" type playlists that are commonly used by WinAmp, MusicMatch, Live365 radio etc. !!

File: Save Playlist

If you have created a Playlist (by selecting records in the database grid by clicking on the most-left column and row(s)) and you are in Playlist mode (so you only see the selected records on the screen and nothing else) then you can save the playlist in the default file called MP3play1.dpl.

Reminder: to get into Playlist mode: simply press the PLAYLIST button or go to the Menu and select Playlist" followed by "Show and Play the Playlist" or "Show the Playlist".

File: Save Playlist As

This is the same as the previous task, but it allows you to determine the name of the playlist under which it will be saved. Although you are free to chose any name, we recommend that you retain our format i.e. MP3play[XX].dpl (whereby XX is a number). At least please always use the ".dpl" extention so you can easily find them on your PC if they get lost.

File: Save Playlist In m3u format

The DSH Jukebox's own playlist format (*.dpl files) contain a lot of information. However, it is a proprietary format that no other programs support. Therefore we have also added the possibility to save playlists in the *.m3u format, which was introduced by WINAMP. Thus you can now generate m3u playlists with the DSH Jukebox and then play them with all programs that support m3u, like WINAMP, MusicMatch, Live365 etc. etc. Particularly if you run your own radio station via www.live365.com you will very much appreciate this feature. Just select all the songs you want to add to the playlist by clicking on the most-left column of the DSH Jukebox, a number will then appear next to each selected row, then press the PLAYLIST button and chose "File" from the Menu and select "Save Playlist in m3u format".

File: Show LOG file

If you have chosen to log all your activities with the DSH Jukebox (see SETTINGS), then this function will allow you to scroll through the contents of the DSH Jukebox.log LOG file and see which songs you play on which date and at what time.

Exit

This will immediately terminate the DSH Jukebox and unload it from memory.

Edit: Edit Database entry

The used (Microsoft) grid control does not enable changing entries directly in the grid itself. Therefore the DSH Jukebox has to use a separate entry form to change information in the database (-grid). This special form will cover the control button while you are using it.

First click on the row in the database grid that you wish to change. You can then change the Song title, Artist name, Album title, Comments, Year of recording and Style field. Always press SAVE to enter these changes in the database. If the mp3 file has an ID3 tag, it will also be immediately amended. If the song had no ID3 tag then the DSH Jukebox will create this tag and enter the information you just typed in.

Special buttons allow you to SWP: swap Artist and Song title, convert all words to LC (Lower Case) or HC (Higher Case) or start each word with a Cap (Capital).  Also by pressing the button Lyrics, Picture or kb/s can you see whether lyrics or pictures for this song are present in the directory that you assigned for them and you can determine the encoding rate in kb/s of the mp3 file. These three pieces of information are then directly sent as an update to the database.

Three check boxes on the right, when checked, respectively enable the DSH Jukebox to determine whether you already have stored the Lyrics for this song in your Lyrics directory, where one or more pictures of this Artist is/are already present in your Artist directory and what the encoding rate of the mp3 file is (in kb/s). This newly obtained information is then also automatically stored in the database AND into the ID3 Tag of the MP3 file!

This Edit function is identical to the ID3 tag editor.

The entry form will automatically disappear if you scroll through the database. It will re-appear as soon as you (single) click on any row in the database grid. If you don't need to use this editor, we recommend that you close this form.

Edit: Insert

Edit: Copy selected songs

This is a very handy feature that will make it very easy to copy songs from various places on your hard disk to one directory. For instance if you want to give a friend some songs, you can simply select them (by left-clicking the most left column of the applicable line in the database until a number appears) and once all songs you want to copy have been selected (and received a number), you activate this feature from the Edit menu, select the Directory to which you wish to copy the files and then press the START button.

Edit: Find Any Song

This is a brand new and very powerful feature. It allows you to find any song in the database simply by inserting a couple of search words. A new window will appear in which you should enter the search string (for instance "Sinatra New York"). Then press the ENTER key on you keyboard or press the "START" button with the mouse. After a couple of seconds the DSH Jukebox will show all the songs that contain the search string!

Simply double click on the song in the list that now has appeared to immediately play it.

Please note that this elaborate search feature requires the generation of a special search database (that is saved in a file called "MP3find1.mdb"). In contains all the words that it finds in the song titles and artists names of your DSH Jukebox's music database. Each time you make changes to the DSH Jukebox's music database you will need to create a new search database. Normally the DSH Jukebox will automatically warn you to do so. Simply press the "CREATE" button to create this database. If you have many thousands of songs, this may take from a couple of minutes to half an hour. Nevertheless, you will love the results once this is done.

You can limit the number of songs it shows after having pressed start. By default it is set to 20.

Tip: If you have a large song collection (>20.000 songs) then the search feature works best if you enter only 2 or 3 unique search words. Try to avoid common words like "you", "and", "if", "to", "love" etc. because there are so many songs with these words and this slows the search process down. If you have less than 10.000 songs, you won't notice any slow down.

If you have speech recognition software (like Philips - Freespeech), simply put the cursor on the search text input field and speak the key words of the song and/or artist.

Edit: Find Text

This function allows you to find any text in the database. A small window will appear in which you should enter the columns in which the text should be found. Of course you can click to select "ALL", but then the search can be time consuming, especially in large databases. If you know where the text can be found (for instance in SONGS or ARTIST) then only select these columns.

Edit: Replace Text

This task is even more powerful: any text in the database can be replaced by something else. For example you could change "Mozart" into "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart".

We recommend that you always make a backup copy of the database (with FILE-SAVE AS) before you activate this function, because some changes might be irrevocable!

Edit: Find Double Records

Sometimes you may accidentally add records to the database twice thus causing them to be shown twice. Even more specific: you may have the same mp3 songs twice or more times on your PC (but for instance stored in different directories. This tasks helps you to easily find double records.

Check boxes allow you to determine how the comparisons are done. Check the columns that have to searched in order to determine doubles. At least always check the Song and Artists columns.

You can find double records one by one by first pressing START to see the first double record set (if existent) and then to continue by pressing NEXT to find the next set and so on. Every second double record will be marked with a number which makes it very easy to delete them (with the EDIT/DELETE tasks described below). If you want to select all double files at once, then check the "FIND ALL" check box and press start. Before deleting them from the database, we strongly recommend that you manually check each double pair (by scrolling through the database) to see if you are really sure!

You can click on the left-hand column in the applicable line to remove the number and thereby remove the selection.

Please note that none of the delete tasks of the DSH Jukebox actually removes the song file itself from your PC; only the entry in the database is removed! To actually delete songs itself, use the delete file tasks of the Windows explorer!

Finally: please use EDIT/CLEAR SELECTION before you activate a new doubles comparison.

Edit: Delete this Record only

Any one record in the database can be deleted. Simply click somewhere in one column of the line showing the data that you wish to delete and then activate this function. You don’t necessarily have to click in the left hand column to make a number appear (which does apply to the Delete All selected Records task described below).

Be careful: this task is not reverse-able. Once accidentally deleted you will manually have to add the file to the database again with the ACTION-ADD ONE SONG function. Don’t worry that the song file itself might be deleted: this will never happen; only the entry in the DSH Jukebox’s database is removed!

Edit: Delete All selected Records

Any record in the database can be deleted. If you want to delete more than one record simultaneously, simply click on the left hand column of the line(s) showing the data that you wish to delete (a number should then appear!). Continue this until you have thus selected all the records you wish to delete from the database and then activate this function. The order of selection is not important. If you make a mistake, simply click again on the left hand column and the number you see there will disappear (and that record will then not be deleted).

Be careful: this task is not reverse-able. Once accidentally deleted you will manually have to add these files to the database again with the ACTION-ADD ONE SONG function. However, don’t worry that the song file itself might be deleted: this will never happen; only the entry in the DSH Jukebox’s database is removed!

Edit: Clear selection

This will remove all selection numbers from the left-hand column (in case you had selected one or more records in order for them to be deleted or added to a playlist).

Edit: Remove Non-Standard MP3 header

Some internet sites add information at the beginning of the MP3 song file. One site doing that is inapnow.com. The Microsoft Mediaplayer (that the DSH Jukebox uses to play MP3 files) cannot handle such non-standard files and refuses to play. With this edit-feature any non-standard can be eliminated! By the way: if the DSH Jukebox recognizes such a file as soon as you double click to play it, it will ask you whether or not to remove the header.

Edit: Shorten beginning or end of MP3 file

You don't need Cooledit-2000 or any other program to edit MP3 files. In fact the DSH Jukebox does it better! Without converting an mp3 file first to an analog format, edit it and then re-digitize it, the DSH Jukebox can easily removes digital frames at the beginning and/or end of a MP3 file! So if your song starts or ends with scratches, noise or clicks, simply remove it with this feature.

It is done by trial-and-error. Move the slider to the right to set how many milliseconds should be removed (up to 2 seconds), press the TRY button, and roughly a 7 second fragment of the song will be played. Once you have chosen the amount of data to remove from the MP3file (by listening to the trial fragments), simply press SAVE. You can select whether to remove little bits of music from the beginning or from the end of the file. Beware: once you press SAVE, there is NO way back (unless you first saved a copy of the original mp3 file somewhere on disk). This process may be repeated an unlimited number of times (for instance to remove more than 2 seconds from the beginning or end of the song).

Action: Clear and Add Songs

Be very careful before activation this task! It first (irrevocably!) clears the entire database and the adds all songs from the selected directory (including all the files in its subdirectories!).

We recommend that you use the CLEAR DATABASE and ADD to database functions separately.

When in doubt: always first make a backup copy of the database (with FILE-SAVE AS).

Action: Add All Songs

This task is used to add all the song files to the database that are located in a specific database. When you activate this task, a dialog box appears with which you can select the appropriate directory. Then simply select at random any song file in this directory after which all the files in that directory, including those in its subdirectories, are added to the database. Be careful that you don’t add songs that are already in the database otherwise they will be included in the database twice and you will have to remove them manually (or re-open an earlier version of the data base that you saved under another name).

Action: Add one Song

This task is similar to the ADD ALL SONGS task described above, but in this case only the selected file is added to the database

Action: Clear database

All entries in the database will be cleared! Always make a backup before activating this task!

Action: Compact database

Deleting single or multiple files from the database does not mean that the length of the database shortens. It’s liking taking a brick out of a wall: you are left with an open space. To rebuild the wall or in other words to really re-organize the database such that no open spaces are left, you should use this COMPACT DATABASE task.

Action: Refresh database

This refreshes (re-opens) the active database, i.e. all selection numbers (if any) are removed and all changes (if not saved earlier) to the database will be lost.

Action: Sort Selection A > Z

This enables you to sort a part of a the database. Select one or more lines in the grid (by clicking the left mouse button, keeping it pressed and dragging it up or down) and then activate this feature.

Sorting will be in ascending order.

Action: Sort Selection Z > A

This sort feature is also activated when you click on the "ARTIST" tab (in the first line) of the grid.

Remember to first SORT the database by ARTIST, SONG, ALBUM or other before activating this task. What-you-see-is-what you get!

The text file thus created is called LIST1.TXT and can be found in the DSH Jukebox directory after this task has been completed.

Settings: General Settings

This simply gives direct access to the SETTINGS screen that allows you to customize the use of the database. The settings are described further below.

Settings: Path Settings

This is a very important screen. You must specify here where all your Lyrics, (artist-) Pictures, Album covers and -Backs and Artist-directories are located in your computer. If you don't specify correct path names, then the DSH Jukebox will not know where to find these items and show them on the screen when you select (to play) a song

First press the button of the path setting that you wish to change and then browse through the drives and directories until you have found the appropriate directory.

This screen also enables the path settings for your Media player (Winamp, Music Match or other). You can ignore these path settings if you use the MP3 player that is built-in the DSH Jukebox or if you use your PC's default player.

Settings: SAVE Settings

Any changes you might have made to settings, column widths etc. etc. will now be saved for future use.

Settings: Speaking DJ settings

The speaking DJ is a lot of fun. The DJ will announce every song in the playlist or when individually started (by double clicking a row in the Database grid). You can chose whether the song already starts to play before the DJ has finished what he is supposed to say, or only starts after the DJ has made his announcement.

A built-in random generator will ascertain that the DJ  will say something different for each song!

Here you can program how his/her voice sounds and what information is read  aloud (!) every time you start to play a song. You must have a "speech agent" installed on your PC. Even more than one voice can be installed and selected here. Install Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia to install an "agent" or go to the Microsoft webpages.  Press the VOICE button to find out which voice types you have available. Press the TEST button to hear how the DJ currently sounds without changing the voice.

The Speaking DJ must be switched ON  in order to use it. If no speech agent is present on your PC, then the DSH jukebox may generate an error. In that case please set the speaking DJ setting to "OFF" and don't forget to save this setting.

Finally, please make sure that you select a speech agent that speaks the same language as the DSH Jukebox (either English or Dutch), otherwise for instance a Dutch speaker will make a mess of English texts!

Settings: Use Freespeech

It is now possible to control the DSH Jukebox with your voice! If you have the "Freespeech-2000" speech recognition software installed on your PC then you can select artists, songs, albums and much more simply by speaking to your computer!

When you select this feature from the menu then the same window will appear as under the FIND feature. Please note that in this mode you cannot operate the media-player on the right, because it is operated by the DSH Jukebox's internal commands. The DSH Jukebox recognizes if Freespeech is already running. If not you can press the "START FREESPEECH" button which will start it, provided you installed Freespeech in the default Directory. If not, you must start Freespeech separately via Windows-Start.

Of course you should already have installed Freespeech-2000 beforehand before you can use the speech recognition feature on the DSH Jukebox. You should also have trained Freespeech for at least 30 minutes and preferably also created and added LIST1.TXT to the Context of Freespeech. The latter is necessary to make Freespeech also recognize many strange words in song titles and artist names! LIST1.TXT can be made with "Action - Make text file with list of songs" from the DSH Jukebox's menu.

Press the Red record button on the Freespeech taskbar and you're ready to go!

Say the following to control the DSH Jukebox by voice:

Overview

"Artist"

"Song"

"Album"

"Style"

"Year"

"Play"

"End"

"Next"

"Back"

"Previous"

"Random"

Note-1: If the "Direct Play" checkbox is on, you will not have to say the word "play", because the software will then immediately play this song.

The Playlist is one of the most important features of the DSH Jukebox, because it enables you to listen to a pre-selected number of songs. Just sit back and relax!

You can recognize that the DSH Jukebox is in Playlist mode by the fact that the "ADD", "INSERT" and "BROWSE" buttons get a new meaning, i.e.: "BACK", "REPEAT" and "NEXT", which allows you to control the Playlist.

Also the screen will be split in two halves. On the left you will see all the songs you have selected to play in the PLAYLIST and on the right the entire Database can still be accessed!

Playlist: Show & Start the Playlist

First select the songs you wish to play by clicking the utmost left column of the row in the grid that show that particular song. A number will then appear. If you made an error, simply click there again and the number will disappear. Continue doing this until all the songs you wish to play are selected. Do this selection in the order in which the songs should be played!

Now activate this task (or press the PLAYLIST button) and you will see all the songs being listed in the order that you selected them and the DSH Jukebox will immediately start to play the first song from the list. The DSH Jukebox automatically determines the MPEG coding-method an calculates the play duration after which the next song will start to play.

Playlist: Show the Playlist

Playlist: Clear the Playlist

Playlist: Back to the Database

If you are in Playlist mode, this enables you to return to the normal Database mode of operation. The split screen mode will then disappear.

Playlist: Select at Random

If selecting songs manually is too tedious, simply choose this task and the DSH Jukebox will at random select any number of songs (you should determine how many songs; the default number is 10).

Playlist: Select at Random according to Mood

A more elaborate random selection method is offered here. First determine in what mood you are and thus what STYLE (genre) of songs you wish to hear. Select one or more STYLES by double clicking them in the list box. These selected styles will then be shown in the adjacent list box. You can do the same for the period (by double clicking the relevant year(s)). Of course this task only performs well if you consistently filled all the STYLE and YEAR data in the database (and/or in the ID3 TAG) for each song.

Playlist: Select non-random according to Mood

In this case, the DSH Jukebox does not select at random but simply starting at the top of the database grid and working its way down according to the (STYLE and YEAR) criteria that you have set. Some variety may be obtained by sorting the database grid by SONG, ARTIST or other.

Please be aware that if you select a high number for the songs that should be selected, the DSH Jukebox might not always be able to reach this number, simply because there are no more songs in the database that match your criteria! For instance if there are only two songs in your database with "Oldies" as style and as year "1965" you can set the number to 100 but never will more than these 2 be displayed! This also applies to the Random method described above.

Playlist: Select all songs by this Artist

In order to compile a Playlist that (only) contains the songs of one specific artist, simply go to a (any!) line in the database grid that contains a song of this artist and activate this task from the Menu. In stead you can also press the button marked "ARTIST"

Just a tip: the quickest way to obtain such a list is to first sort the database grid by artist. In that case all the songs by this artist will already be shown together. If you don’t do this, but sort the database grid by song or (something else), then the program will have to search through the entire database to find all the songs. This will certainly take longer, but has the advantage that all the songs will be shown in alphabetical order.

Once all the songs by this artist have been found, the Playlist is automatically created and the first song starts to play. The "ARTIST" button now gets a new task because it now changes into a "RANDOM". If you press this random-button, all the songs shown by the artist will be played in random order. A special piece of software guarantees that no song is played twice (at least not until all the songs by the artist have been played once, after which the whole random process re-starts).

Also once in playlist mode this Menu-task changes into "Play all the songs by this artist at random".

You may press the RANDOM button more than once (or activate this menu –task) to quickly start playing another song at random.

The random play mode will cease as soon as you press one of the control buttons: "BACK", "REPEAT" or "NEXT".

Playlist: Play Intro(‘s) only

By activating this feature, the playlist will be activated but only a couple of seconds of each song will be played. You can set the play duration (intro length) under SETTINGS between 1 and 30 seconds.

Print: Printer Setup

This screen should seem familiar to you and need no further explanation

Print All Records

As you may suspect from the title, this task will print a list of ALL the songs in the database. Be aware that if you have a large database, this task will might consume 100 or more sheets of paper!

Before activating, please setup the printing layout (described below).

Print: Print Selected Records

First select the songs in your database of which you want to make a printed list by selecting them (press on left most column in the appropriate rows until a number appears).

Before activating, please setup the printing layout (described below).

Print: Printing-layout Setup

Here you will find on of the sophisticated tasks of the DSH Jukebox. It enables you to very flexibly determine the layout of any lists you wish to print. Most printers cannot print more than 80 characters per line. For each database item you can determine whether it should be printed and with how many characters. Counters should the accumulation of all these settings. Thus you can experiment until the layout is to your liking!

Print: Colour printer settings

The DSH Jukebox can now also print in colour! By clicking this menu item a special screen will appear where you can set the number of characters and the colour for each column that you intend to print.

These tasks have nothing to do with the database. They are all aimed at making changes to the file name of the song itself (as can be found in the relevant directories).

Please note that each of these tasks is let loose on ALL files in a selected directory. For most tasks a trial run is possible so you can see the effect of the task without actually performing it!

Most Mp3 file names look like: "Frank Sinatra – New York New York.mp3". Some people prefer the Artist name first and then the Song title; others prefer the reverse.

Any changes that you make to a file name will only appear in the database if you first clear the old entries and add these songs again (as new) to the database with the ACTION tasks.

Special: List selected files

Special: Swap Artist and Song title in the filename(s)

In the example given above, the result would be that this Frank Sinatra song would be named "New York New York – Frank Sinatra.mp3". Please be aware that for all songs in the selected directory the Artist and Song title will be swapped! In this case the separator is a dash ("-"), but you may select other separator.

Be careful: this task affects all files in the selected directory that contain a separator, not only Mp3 files!

Special: Insert text in filename(s)

With this very powerful function you can add (insert) text into all the filenames of the selected directory. A slide bar is used to set the start position. For example if the selected directory contains songs by "Mozart" you can add the words "Wolfgang Amadeus". Enter these words in the bottom text field

Be careful: this task affects all files in the selected directory, not only Mp3 files!

Special: Add text to the end of filename(s)

This task is the same as the INSERT TEXT tasks but in this case the text is flexibly inserted at the end of the file name, but in front of the ".mp3" extension.

Be very careful: this task affects ALL files in the selected directory, not only Mp3 files!

Special: Delete text in filename(s)

Any text can be deleted from a file name. For instance all files containing the name "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" can be changed back to simply "Mozart" using this task. Just insert the words "Wolfgang Amadeus" in the bottom text field to indicate that this is the text to be deleted. Don’t worry about the starting position, the DSH Jukebox automatically sorts out which parts of the filename are to be deleted.

Be careful: this task affects all files in the selected directory, not only Mp3 files!

Special: Replace text in filename(s)

This task works similar to the DELETE TEXT task, but in this case the text is not deleted but replaced by a new text! For example you could change "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" into "Johannes Mozart" by entering the text: "Wolfgang Amadeus" in the left bottom text field and "Johannes" in the right bottom text field. Again this task acts on ALL the files in the selected directory!

Tip: you can also use this task to change the separator between the Artists name and the Song title in the filename(s). Some people prefer "_" as separator, others use "-" but we prefer " - " (a space, a dash and a space). If your separators are a mess, we would suggest to first all convert them to "-" or "_" (without spaces) and then to " - " (thus first removing any separators surrounded by spaces, otherwise you would sometimes get: " - " (i.e. with two spaces both sides of the separator), which should be avoided.

Be careful: this task effects all files in the selected directory, not only Mp3 files!

Special: Convert filename(s) to Lower Case

The way you compose the title of filenames is a matter of taste. When downloading mp3 files from the Internet you will notice that the filenames are a mess. Some people use capitals, other let each word start with capitals and again others prefer lower case for all words. The DSH Jukebox makes things very easy for you because all file name(s) in a selected directory can all be changed to Lower case in one go! So beware that also in this case this task acts on ALL the files in the selected directory!

Special: Start all words in filename(s) with Capitals

Like in the previous task, this task allows you to quickly convert all filenames in a selected directory. In this case it makes all words in the filename start with a Capital letter. You will find that this is the most common used mode when downloading files from the Internet.

Be careful: this task effects all files in the selected directory, not only Mp3 files!

Special: Show mp3 encoding rate

The DSH Jukebox will determine the encoding rate of each MP3 file in the entire database and enter it into the Execute column (unfortunately we have no other column left to enter this information). This information will be lost in the DSH Jukebox is re-started.

Special: Show and enter mp3 encoding rates into the database

This is the same function as the previous, however the found encoding rate is now also entered and permanently stored into the database. If you have many songs, this function will take a number of minutes to complete!

An "ID3" TAG is a piece of information that is actually stored right at the end in the actual MP3 file itself. It consists of 128 characters which are subdivided into: A three character word: "TAG" followed by: Song title (30 characters), Artist (30 characters), Album title (30 characters), Comments (30 characters), Year (4 characters) and a Style byte (1 character) describing the Genre (Pop, Blues, Rock etc.).

We strongly recommend that all your Mp3 files contain an ID3 tag. It makes your files independent of any database. If you give mp3 files to friends, the ID3 tag automatically is passed on with it because it is stored in the mp3 file! You then don’t have to give them your database.

The most difficult thing of the ID3 tag is filling in the "Year" field. You will have to refer to music books and music encyclopedia on CD-rom.

ID3: Edit/Add ID3 Tags to Mp3 files

Mp3 files sometimes contain information itself about the Artist, Song title, Album, Year, Style and a Comment which are stored as an "ID3 TAG" in the mp3 file. You can easily modify that information yourself (or even Add an ID3 TAG if the file does not contain one) by means of this special task of the DSH Jukebox! This feature allows collective editing of all files in the selected directory, including its sub-directories!

The procedure is as folllows: activate this task from the Menu and a small window will appear. Click on the row of the database that shows the song you want to know more about and all information from the ID3 TAG will appear on screen. If the song file does not contain an ID3 TAG, then the information from the database will be inserted in the Artist and Song field (better than nothing!).

Now you can modify and add this information. Four little buttons help to make life easier: Change all the texts to Lower Case with "LC" or Upper Case with "UC"; All words will start with a capital if you "CAP" and you can quickly swap the contents of the Artist and Song fields "SWP.

Press SAVE to store the information in the ID3 TAG. If the song did not have an ID3 TAG it will now be automatically made. If you don’t want to save anything you have two options: one is to click another song in the database grid the second is to close this little window.

Two steps down you will find a similar task that also allows editing/adding to ID3 TAG’s. However, that tasks works differently.

This ID3 tag edit form is identical to the "EDIT-Edit Database entries" function.

ID3: Edit/Add single Mp3 file ID3 Tag

This task is similar to the first task under the ID3 Menu heading, but it works differently, namely it works in the style of the Windows Explorer and only allows the modification of  the one selected mp3 file.

As already stated: Mp3 files sometimes contain information itself about the Artist, Song title, Album, Year, Style and a Comment which are stored in the mp3 file. You can easily modify that information yourself (or even Add an ID3 TAG if the file does not contain one) by means of this special task of the DSH Jukebox!

First select the relevant file and then press START (or double click on the filename in the right hand list box). Now the ID3 information of that file will appear which you can modify, append or even create as new. Then simply press SAVE and after that you can continue doing the same with other files. If the file had no ID3 tag then it will be automatically created after pressing SAVE; in all other cases the existing ID3 tag will be modified.

ID3: Make ID3 Tag using the filename

It is very convenient to have ID3 Tag’s in all your Mp3 files, especially if you are exchanging them with friends (without giving them your DSH Jukebox database).

You can automatically create (add) an ID3 TAG to ALL files in a directory that do not yet have an ID3 TAG, by simply using the Song and Artist text from the file name plus (optionally) an Album title, a Comment the Year and a Style code that you can enter in the text fields.

Beware that under SETTINGS you should set the correct order of the Song and Artist (swap or not swap) otherwise the Song title part of the filename could end up in the Artist field or the ID3 tag and vice versa!

If you indeed insert an Album, Comment, Year or Style, please be very aware that this text will be inserted in the ID3 tags of ALL the mp3 files that are stored in the selected directory! For most songs this might probably not be a problem, except for the YEAR which will probably be different for each song. We therefore recommend to leave the YEAR field blank.

Please also note that this task will NOT overwrite any ID3 TAG if the mp3 file already contains one. Adding an ID3 tag will only be done for mp3 files, so don’t worry: other files in the selected directory will not be affected. However, you can override this protection by checking the "Overwrite ID3 Tag" checkbox. When checked, the DSH Jukebox will indeed overwrite any existing ID3 tag contents with the Artist name and Song title as contained in the mp3 file name.

Note: it is recommended that you always first edit the mp3 file names. This should be done meticulously and correctly, following the format: '[Artist] - [Titel].mp3'. Always use 'space-dash-space' as separator between the Title and the Artist name.

ID3: Replace Style info in ID3 Tag’s

The STYLE byte in the ID3 TAG (if existing) of ALL files in a directory can be changed with this task. For example all songs in a directory marked as "Blues" can be changed to "Other" etc. (all in one go!).

MP3 file information

This in fact has nothing to do with ID3 TAG’s but we nevertheless put it under the ID3 menu heading. It enables you to read all the technical data about a selected mp3 file. It goes too far for this manual to explain all these technical matters in detail.

If you want to see information about another song file, simply scroll through the database grid and click on the relevant line (single click). When you have done, close the window.

Normally the Lyrics window will occupy half the width of the screen. However, you can enlarge this window to full screen width by setting the check box in the bottom right corner of this window to ON. The font will then be enlarged accordingly. Simply set this check box to off to return to the normal state. While lyrics are in the "wide screen" mode, pictures of artists, album covers and -backs will (obviously) not be shown.

We recommend you set the "Scroll Lyrics" setting to ON. The DSH Jukebox will then calculate the duration of the song and scrolls the lyrics text upwards in order to synchronize the text as best as possible to the music. This will only work properly if the lyrics text matches as close as possible the actual lyrics of the song. If you make lyrics texts yourself, then do not fill the text field with too many blank lines, otherwise the text will not  synchronize very well.

If you left-click anywhere on the actual text, the window will close to allow you to select another song from the grid.

Lyrics: Show Lyrics for this song

Select any song in the grid (single click) and then activate this task to show the lyrics belonging to this song (if available and correctly named and stored in the Lyrics PATH).

Also, while playing a song, lyrics text will disappear if you click on the text window. With this task you can make them re-appear.

Lyrics: Make new Lyric text

Lyrics of most songs can be found on the internet (although in fact most of these sites are infringing copyright law!). However, you may spend an hour or more trying to find a lyric of a specific song, especially if the song is rare. So why not make a lyrics file yourself?! This can be also fun to do.

If is a lot of fun transcribing the lyrics of a song yourself! While playing a song (and going back and forth to hear the exact wording) you can type-in the text of the song. At the end you must SAVE it (by pressing the SAVE button). Please give the lyrics exactly the same name as the song except for the extension that should be .txt or .sng.

All you have to do is:

• select the line with the title of the song in the database grid
• double click somewhere on this line to make the music start to play
• activate this task from the Menu,
• type the text of the song while listening to it while it is playing (and frequently using the pause button to halt the music continue your)
• finally press the SAVE button in the top right-hand corner (the DSH Jukebox automatically generates the filename in the correct format that the DSH Jukebox can handle, or you can change the name yourself).
• Press SAVE in this dialog box to actually save the text.

If you later on double click on this song again, the lyrics you’ve just typed should appear.

Lyrics: Edit Lyrics text

If the lyrics of the song already exist on your PC, you may wish to edit it (not all transcribers are good at their job…!). Activate this task and you will see the colour of the text change to light brown. Now make the desired changes and then select SAVE LYRICS TEXT or SAVE LYRICS TEXT AS (see below).

Lyrics: Save Lyrics text

After editing an existing Lyrics text, you can save it with its original name.